"Dead Man Down" is an incredibly complicated yet extraordinarily
simple-minded thriller with Farrell as an Eastern European émigré ("I worked
very hard to lose my accent," he explains) living in New York with a
refrigerator full of plastique.

Also a plan for revenge.

Except it turns out his French neighbor, Rapace, has her own grudge,
and her own lust for rough justice. So she blackmails Farrell into helping her -- if he'll get the target she has in her sights, she won't turn him in to the
police for what he's already done.

It's not exactly "Strangers on a Train" -- unfortunately -- but at least
it opens up a serious subject for some exploration. In most American movies, revenge
is simply the easiest, cheapest motivation to give your hero: This time, it's
personal.

The mob boss is the creepy Irish-Italian-American Armand Assante. Terrence Howard
is a slick crook named Alphonse, and he leads his own multiracial gang; their
primary partners/rivals are a gang of Jamaican drug dealers, and the
aforementioned Albanians.

It's as if, after years of homogenized Scandinavia, director Niels
Arden Oplev came to New York, took one subway ride through Queens, and just
went wild.

All of which is a refreshing change from the usual Hollywood film, where
diversity means giving the WASP hero a black buddy (and, maybe, a Latina
heroine they can fight over).

Oplev's
style also is nicely classic, with tight, well-framed shots.

But the screenplay by J.H. Wyman -- whose last movie script was the
awful farce "The Mexican" -- is a mess. It starts in the middle of things and
never lets us get our bearings. Mysteries it thinks are clever (who's sending
Alphonse these cryptic threats?) are simply foolish.

And then it simply drives itself over the cliff, in an orgy of idiotic
violence that features a truck taking out a mansion, Farrell taking on a dozen
or so well-armed gangsters, and the sort of mindless violence rarely seen
outside a wrestling show.

Which may not be a coincidence, considering that World Wrestling
Entertainment is one of the many production companies involved, and the cast
features one of their professional lunkheads, Stu Bennett, as one of Howard's
henchmen.

Too bad. Perhaps if Farrell and
Rapace and Oplev had all stayed in Europe -- and tried to do a similar script,
with half as much firepower, and twice as much brainpower -- they might have had
something worth watching. Instead, it's just something worth ducking.

Note: Newhouse News Service critic Stephen Whitty wrote this review.

__________

DEAD MAN DOWN

2 stars, out of 5

Snapshot: A drama-thriller
about the vengeance-minded lieutenant of
a New York crime lord who is blackmailed into teaming up with a like-minded
woman.

What works: The film has a real feel for multi-ethnic New
York, and there are moments of style.

What doesn't: The script is a muddle, and it all devolves
into the usual over-the-top shootout.